Solitude alumnus Wilhelm Sasnal to receive the 2027 Rubens Prize

Sasnal belongs to the first generation of participants in the Solitude Exchange Network (formerly known as the Eastern Europe Network), launched in 2002. The Solitude Exchange Network is an international artist-residency exchange program between the Akademie Schloss Solitude and partner organizations in several Central and Southeastern European countries, including Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, and Hungary. Sasnal arrived at the academy in April 2002 for a three-month residency through a collaboration with the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw/Poland.

Born in 1972 in Tarnów/Poland, Sasnal works as a painter, filmmaker, photographer, and comic artist. He studied architecture at the Kraków University of Technology and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Since the 1990s, his work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, most recently in 2026 at Espaces Louis Vuitton in Munich/Germany.

Throughout his career, Sasnal has drawn on motifs from art history, media imagery, and his own photographs. More recently, his paintings have been based on contemporary photographs of the devastated Gaza Strip and Iranian nuclear facilities.

The Rubens Prize jury praised his painting as an »expressive kaleidoscope of the present« that enriches contemporary painting through its intertwining of personal, political, and historical observations. In addition to the monetary award, the prize includes a publication and an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Siegen/Germany. The award ceremony is scheduled to take place in November 2027.